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Thursday, January 8, 2009

Adventures with Youth at Risk, Intro to BMTA now approved for Continuing Education Hours

Project Adventure's workshop, Adventures with Youth at Risk (Behavior Management through Adventure) has been approved for 24 Continuing Education hours for relicensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. Collaborative of the NASW-MA and the Boston College and Simmons College Schools of Social Work Authorization Number D40400.

For more information on Behavior Management through Adventure training at your site or to attend on of our scheduled workshops, please contact PA at 978-524-4554 or info@pa.org. To see the schedule of dates for open-enrollment workshops, go to www.pa.org/workshops.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Jim Schoel Receives Honor from Northeast AEE

Congratulations to Jim Schoel. According to Northeast AEE, "We are happy to announce that we will be honoring Jim Schoel as our Josh Miner Dialogue Series Award recipient this year on Saturday night of the conference. He will be interviewed by Mark Murray. As a founder of Project Adventure, Jim developed his ideas at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in Massachusetts. He managed an alternative program in the Gloucester Public Schools for 12 years where he was able to practice and refine those ideas".

Jim has been an innovator and thought-leader in adventure education and PA for many years. Jim is currently a Senior Contract Trainer at Project Adventure and has returned to the Gloucester Public Schools as an educator in their alternative education programs.

Jim is co-author of Islands of Healing, Exploring Islands of Healing, and Gold Nuggets.

Join us in congratulating Jim!

Lemonade - A great activity by Mark Collard

Kristen Okura, coordinator for PA's Master's Degree Cohort in Southern CA and Don Juan Avila Middle School Physical Educator, sent a request for this activity. I'm thinking this is a great way to break back into the blog world after a long holiday break!

Hope you enjoy it. This activity and others like it can be found in No Props book by Mark Collard and available from PA.
Lemonade
It’s charades with a chasey twist.

At a glance
One team faces another team miming an occupation. As soon as the first team correctly guesses their trade, they will chase the second team back to their safe area.

What you need
A large, flat and open space, with boundaries
Minimum of 12 trades-people
10 – 15 minutes

What to do
Mark two “safe” areas approximately 30 metres (approximately 98 feet) apart, and a line which represents the mid-point between the two areas. Then divide your group in half.

Ask the members of each team to stand side-by-side, and face the other team about three metres (nine-ten feet) apart. One team moves forward one step and calls out “It’s as easy as Lemonade” (there’s a beat to it). The other team responds by marching forward one step “Show us your trade if you’re not afraid.” Okay, we’re now through with the preliminaries.

Upon this taunt, the “lemonade” team will immediately start to mime or “charade” a pre-determined occupation or trade. This has been agreed to earlier in the game when you asked this team to huddle and discuss which one occupation they would all like to “be” for the first round. Trades such as carpenters, hair-dressers, nurses, judges, lumberjacks, etc are all good examples.

The observing team is now charged with a responsibility of guessing what the chosen occupation is. Anyone can guess at any time, so long as the guesses are loud and clear. As soon as the trades-people hear a correct answer, they will turn around and retreat to their safe area. Naturally, the guessers will spring into action and attempt to tag as many of the trades-people as possible. All successful tags oblige that trades-person to switch teams.

Note, lepidoptery is a fine occupation, but to be fair, no one is ever going to guess this. So in the interests of time, I suggest you coach your group to exercise a modicum of fair play. Otherwise, you’ll be there forever trying to guess what the heck people who work with winged-insects are called.

Also, you may ask why “lemonade.” I don’t have an answer – it just is!

Variations
Same deal, but each team charades a trade at the same time. First correct answer to identify the trade of an opposing team will spark the chase.